Rising Star: Olga Niki

Read Olga’s full artist statement
at the end of the page.

Olga Niki makes her art in analog collage technique. In her work the author explores psychological and social aspects of human life such as loneliness, inner limitations, the search for self, and how external events influence changes in a person’s inner ecosystem. Often, these are spontaneous, intuitive compositions, where the artist does not follow her conception but rather the artwork is being born following its own internal logic, where the author only follows the direction of the lines and the development of the plot, adhering to basic compositional and coloristic rules. These collages best reflect the artist’s inner state and bring to the surface feelings and experiences that are sometimes invisible in everyday life. In her work Olga tries to demonstrate everything that she loves in collage technique. The subtle play of lines, angles, meanings, a hint of provocation, the juxtaposition of spaces.

When the obvious becomes quite unobvious. Where logic suggests a continuation of something familiar and predictable, there is a new meaning, an unexpected twist. This is a very fascinating thing for her as a creator. Sometimes she adds hand or machine stitching to her collages. Adding threads as a medium, she thereby diversifies her technique, makes her work more recognizable and interesting for the viewer. The variety of materials she uses in her work brings her a lot of joy and satisfaction: magazine clippings, newspapers, and paper with different textures, everything the artist can touch and feel. She likes the rustle of magazine pages and the sound of paper tearing in hands. Also she loves moving details in her collages, looking for the only possible position for each fragment.